The members of our union are an enormously educated and committed group of people, but you would never know it from the treatment they get at the hands of the present Department of Education. If the press won't write about the assault on the profession, we have to do it ourselves.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Reductivism — did we ask for this?

Some of the statements coming from Unity after they pushed through the last disastrous contract, and I guess back before that as well, have led me to think there are only two kinds of union leadership: the one that fights for better conditions and the one that settles for the bottom line: "Hey, you have a job, don’t you."

There’s almost no use beating this dead horse to make it serve us better. Weingarten, queen of collaboration and givebacks, hasn't got us better conditions for years, and that includes salary as well, since people who have bothered to calculate the net results of the pay increases came out with unfavorable verdicts once standard-of- living adjustments and increased hours were factored in.

But there’s a lot of talk about job security and no-layoff. You get statements like these:

On the UFT website under Excessing Rules, June 5, 2006: "... the excessing clause is a virtual no-layoff provision"

In a Weingarten email of Sept. 16, 2007, the 2005 contract "created a job security clause the likes of which we have never had.”

Another of her emails a few weeks later: "I have said the following countless times: we have total job security ... By negotiating full job security in the 2005 contract, we stopped [Klein]. That was re-affirmed in the 2006 contract."

As I see it, Weingarten thinks of the word “job” as “the state of being employed.” She has neither the intention or the anger to fight for the kinds of things that word means to the rest of us — that in return for our expertise, stamina, creativity, and willingness to teach huge classes with limited supplies and social supports, we ask for a fair degree of autonomy and other conditions shared by professionals who hold graduate degrees.

Weingarten is reductive: she diminishes and curtails our profession. There are any number of conditions that don't really work for us, like cafeteria duty, staff “development” (professionals don’t need to be “developed”— they need to confer, meet, read, and chew over educational issues and school methodologies), one-size-fits-all staff development, longer days, shorter summers, and meaningless procedures to rebut untruths in the files to exemplify her long record of this kind of diminishment.

In the past two years, the leadership seems to have gone from this statement in Edwize, where a “job” seems to imply a real position:

Seniority in lay-offs is a core union principle. We could not accept a contract which did not secure the rights of senior excessed teachers to a position in another school. (Leo Casey, Oct. 4, 2005)

to this statement on the UFT website a year later talking about the No-Layoff Provision, where the mention of a real “position” is decidedly absent:

The fact-finders ... agreed with us to stop bumping and to maintain educators who are in excess in the D.O.E. employ.

Here's something else. When I wrote Weingarten last summer (after being excessed) that in spite of years of good service and skills it looked as if I was not going to land even a single interview much less a new position because of my age or salary, she wrote back rather glibly:

"It used to be this way all the time except that when music teachers used to be excessed they were laid off."

What this statement showed most was her indisputable lack of concern for quality and length of service. When she got blindsided, seemingly, by Klein's move last spring to have principals pay salaries out of their own budgets, even then she couldn't muster anything more than a "Ho, hum."

It would surprise a lot of us if Weingarten were to hold firm on job security, and it's not at all clear she's even planning to. Unity staff have accused people of fearmongering and keep insisting that giving up tenure will "never happen."

But, the wording in the explanation of tenure given on the UFT's own website is vague enough to spell no good. I've underlined these bits, then elaborated on them below:

Tenure is a status that appointed pedagogues achieve after completing a probationary period with satisfactory service. Once you have tenure, you cannot be dismissed without being formally charged and having a hearing before an independent arbitrator on those charges. This protects you from being fired by your supervisor for personal or political reasons.

Although teachers are not “guaranteed a job for life”, as critics often say, it is true that, after completing a probationary period, teachers in New York State may generally not be fired except for just cause or a layoff situation. Inappropriate conduct that gives rise to dismissal is defined in state law and must be substantiated by the DOE in a due-process hearing before an independent arbitrator. A layoff or “reduction in force” happens when positions have been eliminated, usually due to funding cuts. (NY Teacher, June 7, 2007)

generally — mostly, but not always

just cause — defined as a “standard or test often applied to determine the appropriateness of disciplinary action,” and which we all know is not always kosher, either at the school level or the DOE level

inappropriate conduct ... defined in state law — Education Law 3020-a talks about the sale and possession of drugs and certain felonies, as well as “pedagogical incompetence or issues involving pedagogical judgment,” but other kinds of inappropriate conduct are not mentioned or defined. Article 21.G of the UFT contract also speaks of 3020-a procedures, which includes this time Time and Attendance (G.1). It also seems to recognize a difference between plain old misconduct and “serious misconduct,” which gets its own subsection, G.5; firearms and unspecified felonies are mentioned here. So these kinds of things seem to be covered in a variety of laws and contracts, and those of us who are not lawyers will find this whole search tiresome, vague, and fairly impenetrable.

independent arbitrators — which most of us really doubt, since there is much talk of their having to divide the cases up to find for the board and the members in somewhat equal proportion

usually — in other words, there might be cases when positions are eliminated for reasons other than funding cuts (like when the board eliminated the position of ed evaluator in 2003, probably because these people cost the city a chunk of change)

No matter what the leadership says about holding firm on no-layoff, this kind of ambiguity does not bode well for our future. The board is already finding it easy enough to pressure us to resign through harassment even when a no-layoff rule is still in place.

We need substantive changes in the way the UFT deals with the BloomKlein regime in the next couple of years. We need less kissy-kissy, less gamesmanship, and less collaboration. We don't need the public hugs, or the compliments, or the birthday celebrations. And we certainly don't need a president who serves us less than full time while she goes about seeking national office and working for other labor unions. There's certainly plenty of work to be done right here.

What we do need is to reconstitute this union. We need a rank-and-file that is motivated to stand up to management when it needs to, we need protests and other kinds of demonstrations (like withholding service within contractual stipulations), we need instant responses to the outrageous union-busting maneuvers Klein has been pulling for years, and we need a definitive commitment on the part of leadership to send these anti-teacher corporate thugs back where they came from.

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We need REAL union leaders

Lois Weiner: "But for teachers seeking protection against capricious, educationally destructive and downright inhumane treatment at the hands of supervisors — at all levels of the school system — the UFT is little more than a dues-collecting machine. It is weak to the point of being nonexistent and oppressively bureaucratic in its own operations."

"Shouldn't the teacher be paid more if the students learn more?" NO (click below)

Congratulations to another ICE progeny

Gabrielle Prisco, daughter of ICE founding members Loretta and Gene Prisco, has just been appointed by the Correctional Assn of NY Director of its Juvenile Justice Project.
Listen to her speak on GritTV.

Read Mr. Talk on DC chancellor's grammar

"Michelle Rhee was nice enough to write an opinion piece for the Daily News urging NYC teachers to agree to an idiotic contract like the one she shoved down the throats of DC teachers. It was about as poorly written an article as you'll ever see from a so-called educator. As one of those teachers she'd like to fire, I thought I'd help proofread the thing, which clearly never occurred to Rhee herself . . ."

What the critics say

"A Lucy Woodward show will get you hot and bothered.It is a sultry, jazzy, torchy experience that feels genuinely out of time and at the same moment timeless. In fact, more than any other artist, perhaps the music and showmanship of a Woodward show is reminiscent of the early, jazzy shows of young Bette Midler."

CIF's Donna Nevel: "What we have to do is reclaim our schools."

Diane Ravitch with Brian Lehrer

And click this link to read George Schmidt's review of the book, from which I quote:

"As we look favorably on Diane Ravitch's scathing critique of most of the main pillars of corporate school reform, we need to remember that it was Ravitch who was one of the most prolific — and dishonest — purveyors of the falsification of history and fact which has been necessary, to this day, to the vicious spread of attacks on public education. 'Race to the Top' anyone? The impact of those lies-repeated-as-history continues to this day."

VIDEO - Protest at Bloomberg's residence

Hochstadt on the RRs: a lawyer's statement

Attorney Joy Hochstadt's rebuttal to Steven Brill's article in the New Yorker last summer, which riled practically everyone who knows anything about the infamous Teacher Reassignment Centers in NYC.

NYC's DYNAMIC DUO

Another GOLD MEDAL for Bellel!

Listen to this REMIX program on Rubber Rooms

Apart from the first ten minutes or so when they try to clean up some sound issues, this extended discussion of the disgraceful rubber room situation is very informative.
I thought I was up on these things, but learned a lot more. It's long, and worth it.
Moderated by Ms Blue, guests include Radio Rahim, Betsy Combier, teachers, callers from other states . . .

David Pakter's comment on the Village Voice blog

For Those Interested In The Truth About New York City's Rubber Rooms.... I am that New York City Educator mentioned in Roy Edroso's VILLAGE VOICE story who is charged with “bringing a plant to school” but that is not the real reason I was banished to one of New York City’s infamous Rubber Room gulags.

These Big Apple "Guantanamos" which represent abominations that exist no where else in NY State, are being used more and more in New York City to retaliate against Whistle-blowers or teachers in general who expose corruption and/or mismanagement in the 23 Billion dollar New York City Dept/Board of Education.

Under the Dictatorial reign of Mayor Bloomberg and the Faux Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq., (a former Federal Prosecutor, who had to have strings pulled in Albany to get appointed via a "Special Waiver", since Klein lacked any of the normally required credentials for the position of Chancellor), the NYC Board of Education has increased its power and ability to intimidate its critics, exponentially.

Although many people in the News media have written stories dealing with the Rubber Rooms, the clear bias towards the teachers sitting in the City's legions of Rubber Rooms is always evident to any impartial reader.

There is always that lingering insinuation and/or subtle, or not so subtle suggestion that while a few teachers may not belong in the Rubber Rooms, by and large, allegedly and supposedly, the vast majority of the hundreds and hundreds of teachers sent there, often for years, probably did "something" to deserve this Fate.

In my case the reasons offered for my removal are so ludicrous, bordering on the preposterous, that one must actually attend one of my State Teacher Trial Hearings to believe that the charges even exist.

Let me say here that I fully and openly confess to the "charge" I brought some plants to my school to decorate the lobby. But that is not the real reason I was removed from my position.

Should anyone wish to know the real reason/s I was removed from my position, it is only necessary to visit the following website/s :

There in the first website above, one will see a photograph of me being Decorated by the former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York’s City Hall, as a “Teacher of the Year” for “Exceptional Achievement in Education”. I had designed, built from the ground up, and personally funded, the first premiere Medical Illustration Program in the United States for gifted Minority students.

The goal of the program was to serve as a launching pad to propel those students from socio-economically deprived backgrounds into Ivy League Universities and into careers including Medicine, as Physicians and research Scientists.

The success of this unique program was such, that it attracted the attention of Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist, Clara Hemphill.

But once I became a Whistle-blower the New York City Dept/Board of Education went after me with a vengeance not witnessed in decades and has led to multiple Federal Lawsuits against those responsible for the blistering amounts of Whistle-blower Retaliation that has been directed at me for the past 5 years.

To see just a small example of what New York’s students are being deprived of please visit my personal website:

I would welcome being contacted by Mr. Roy Edroso, who ranks among the few reporters who does not buy into all the smoke and mirror propaganda constantly put out by Chancellor Klein's personal public relations machine stooges.

Any member of the news media who is interested in getting the real story behind the skewed and embarrassingly slanted slurs and smears directed at the countless teacher/victims of the NYC Board of Education under Bloomberg and Klein, can with very little effort, explore and research the reality of what New York’s “Rubber Room” system is really all about and learn how these Rubber Room “reassignment centers” are used to bludgeon, retaliate against and crush any teacher who has the temerity to Whistle-blow and/or otherwise report corruption and/or wrongdoing of any kind, within the 23 billion dollar New York Dept/Board of Education.

My upcoming State 3020-a, Teacher Trial Hearing dates are Thursday and Friday, December 10 and 11 and will take place on the 6th floor at 49 Chambers Street in lower Manhattan at 10 AM.

The building is situated directly across the street from the huge marbled and Palatial size, Tweed Courthouse, which is now the headquarters and seat of power from which a non- Education credentialed individual named Joel Klein, rules his vast 23 Billion dollar Public schools Empire - with an iron fist it should be noted.

That immense edifice to the vast unbridled corruption and theft of Public resources, perpetrated by the notorious "Boss Tweed", in the last Century, before he was finally hauled off to jail, is perhaps a fitting and perfect business address for today's present NYC Board of Education.

Klein and his willing lackeys and confederates are guilty of many ill conceived acts and decisions that have done incalculable harm to the dedicated Teachers, Parents and Public School children of our beloved City. But the tide is slowly turning and New Yorkers are starting to fight back.

And Bravo and bravo encore for that because our Children are not for sale, not even to a Billionaire and his "Legend in his own Mind", Faux Chancellor.

Attend a former "Teacher of the Year" turned Whistle-blower's Trial December 10 and 11. See how your hard earned Tax Dollars are spent to crush dissent in a free Society.

The author of this blog

UA has been a teacher for 20 some years. She has built more than 15 school choruses in this city and conducted them in well over 100 concerts. Her absences have been infrequent, her ratings satisfactory, and she teaches with enthusiasm. Up to 450 students have passed through her classroom each school year.

UA was a musicologist before she became a teacher and held the position of senior internal editor on the world's largest and most comprehensive encyclopedia of music (The New Grove Dictionary of Music, 29 vols.). She is known for her scholarly work on some of the longest (and most tedious!) bibliographical articles in the main work and the subsequent offshoot reference books. She also trained as a coloratura in New York, London and Italy, and has a working knowledge of several other languages.

After a flirtation with rumba/tango, UA wrote a play on ballroom partner dancing called Real Changes, which makes side trips into Zen, intellectualism/eroticism, tragedy/comedy, a parody of Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost, Nietzsche's early works, and nirvana. (She is still not clear which of these should dominate the psyche, but is happy to have spent four years trying to find out. You can, too: call Oscar for dance lessons and a journey into the abyss, 917-922-1073.)

Before her recent retirement, UA thought she could pass the remaining years of her career in relative calm. But this was not to be. She was excessed for the second time in her career two years ago and was for a year and a half a sub, or in the vernacular, an ATR. A successful grievance restored her to a position, but the principal has many ways to keep someone squirming. Teaching fully out of license was one of them, during which time she lost her desire to teach at all.

It is very hard to tell whether she was excessed in that period because her subject is music (which is not particularly respected in this school system), or because she was becoming too old, too expensive, or too ... "vocal."